Why Choose Us

Over 30 years’ experience in providing hassle-free ski trips

With a passion for skiing, French language teacher Keith Sharkey arranged many school ski trips during his career. He believed that travel was of immeasurable benefit to students and enjoyed being able to offer his the opportunity to do so. Having led so many trips during his teaching career, when Keith came to found Halsbury Travel in 1986, it was with a deep understanding of the organisation involved and the pressures on teachers. His company was based on the desire to ease the organisational process for teachers, taking on the responsibilities for many of the administrative tasks from travel arrangements to après-ski activities. Halsbury can even assist with advertising the trip to parents and students, with a range of promotional materials.

Tailor-made trips

As well as our MD, Keith, many of our other senior members of staff are former teachers. They have used their first-hand experience of arranging trips for their students to develop the way that Halsbury Ski arranges trips. Central to our ethos is the understanding that every group has different needs and requirements. Therefore, the only way to provide school groups with trips that will inspire and live up to expectations is to tailor-make each and every one. We will discuss your requirements and aims for the trip with you and will then use our experience to create the very best ski trip for your group.

Excellent health and safety standards

We take the health and safety of our groups extremely seriously and this is always our priority. We are very proud to be a member of the School Travel Forum (STF); a group of leading school tour operators promoting best practice and safety in school travel. All full members of STF (of which we are one) must adhere to a very strict Code of Practice and a rigorous Safety Management System, which are externally verified. We are also fully accredited.

Our accreditations

It is essential that you verify a company’s accreditations prior to making a booking. We hold the following accreditations:

ABTA – As a member of ABTA, our customers are protected financially, which is especially important when running a school group trip. ABTA is the Association of British Travel Agents, which is a body dedicated to raising standards of quality, safety, service and financial security on trips abroad.

STF – The School Travel Forum is a group of the leading school tour operators works to promote safety in school travel. As a member, Halsbury Travel has assumed responsibility for putting into place a strict Safety Management System.

ATOL – All of the flights and air tours that we arrange are ATOL protected (ATOL 5079) by the Civil Aviation Authority.

24-hour support

Our experienced tour managers will support you throughout the planning and booking process and, before you travel, you will be sent a group leader’s pack, which will contain all the information you will need on your trip. Perhaps most importantly, it will include a list of emergency contacts. We hope that nothing will go wrong on your trip, but this list will mean that you are just a phone call away from help if it does. Don’t forget, your friendly and experienced Halsbury Ski rep will also be on-hand throughout your trip, should you require any assistance.

Established relationships with ski resorts

Our tour managers are all keen skiers and so know what to look for when selecting destinations. We now offer over 75 ski resorts across Europe, Canada and America and every single one has been carefully selected to ensure that it is suitable for school groups. Our tour managers make a point of regularly visiting these resorts to ensure that they continue to offer the high quality ski experience, accommodation and safety measures that we expect for our groups. Our high standards must be met by each and every resort in order for us to offer them to our groups. With regards to ski instructors, we will only ever use fully-licensed, nationally-recognised local ski schools. This is important, as it means that you can be certain that the instructor teaching your students knows the mountain.

High-quality transport

We offer a choice of coach or air transport. Should you choose to travel by coach, you can be assured that we only use luxury vehicles that are less than 5 years old. These top-of-the-range coaches offer TV and DVD facilities, WC and, crucially, seatbelts. We also own several luxury vehicles that offer free Wi-Fi too!

As we mentioned, all flights and air tours operated by Halsbury are ATOL-protected (ATOL 5079). We can arrange your flight from a number of UK airports and will always find the most convenient, affordable option for your group.

Inspection visits and group leader family discount

Many group leaders prefer to visit a resort prior to offering the trip to their pupils and we completely understand this. We are able to offer both individual and group inspection visits (where you would travel with other teachers). We can also offer group leaders a family discount when booking a school ski trip.

High-quality ski equipment

In each resort we have local ski equipment suppliers, whom we have carefully selected on the basis that they offer equipment that is both of the highest quality and is maintained by qualified ski technicians.

Great value trips

We work very hard to make sure that our prices are as competitive as possible and will never charge you supplements after booking, unlike some operators. On your quote, we will include a ‘valid until’ date and, as long as you book by that date, we will only charge you the price quoted. Due to our fantastic relationship with ski resorts, we are able to offer low-cost options to many of the major French resorts.